UNDP’s stance on transgenics ignites debate

by Diego Cevallos

Mexico City, 12 Jul 2001 (IPS) - The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) entered rocky terrain when it asserted that genetically modified crops could be the key to combatting world hunger, especially since it did so at a time when the proponents of these products appear to be back-pedalling.

The total area in the world cultivated with transgenic seeds multiplied 25-fold between 1996 and 2000, but in the most recent biennial expansion, it dropped to just 8%, a low rate compared to the 44% increase recorded from 1998 to 1999.

According to the UNDP, the environmental impact of genetically modified organisms has not been verified, and precautions should be taken. What is clear, says the UN agency, is that there are 850 million people in the world who suffer from hunger, and transgenic crops could be the key to feeding them.

We should not “hastily discard the possibilities provided by transgenics for high-yield crops,” and even less when hunger could intensify in Africa, Elena Martinez, UNDP director for Latin America, told IPS.

“First we should ask ourselves whether or not the risk-laden transgenics are needed to combat hunger, if there are other possibilities in organic farming that are being ignored by the transnational seed companies, or if the problem is really a matter of global politics and economics,” commented Silvia Ribeiro, Latin American representative for the Rural Advancement Foundation International (RAFI).

The commercial transgenic crops existing today are soy, maize, cotton and canola, and are marketed by five transnationals based in the industrialized North that hold the patent rights to the seeds. Of the area planted with these genetically modified organisms, 98% is in Argentina, Canada and the US.

Monsanto, Dupont, Syngenta, Aventis and Dow - leaders in transgenics and in the pharmaceutical, agro-chemical and seed industries - maintain that genetically modified crops represent the cure for world hunger.

Monsanto, responsible for 94% of the area planted with commercial transgenic seeds, announced in January that it is designing a campaign to promote its genetically modified products after recognising a decline in the market.

Biotechnology offers a unique and perhaps the best recourse for ecologically marginalised areas, says the UNDP in its Human Development Report, presented Tuesday in Mexico City.

The UN agency suggests that industry lobbyists exaggerate the potential short-term benefits of the genetically modified crops, while social and environmental activists overstate the risks involved.

In practice, the battle over transgenics is being waged by scientists working to develop new seed varieties and by powerful corporations, civil society and environmental groups.

In the middle of the fray are the governments of developing countries, which are under intense pressures as they debate how to confront this new technology. And there are the impoverished and hungry people who are seeking access to obtain more food.

The World Bank’s food policy research institute warns that international food production today faces severe risks as a result of soil degradation, drought and contamination.

The promoters of transgenic technology (the introduction of a gene from one species into another) claim that it will permit the creation of economical, fast-growing crops with high protein content and will reduce the need for agro-chemicals.

But these promises have yet to become reality. Experiments are being conducted on several transgenic products, but only five different crops have reached the global market. And the production of transgenic seeds focuses on just two areas: tolerance against pesticides and insects.

Researcher Charles M. Benbrook, former head of the US Agricultural Sciences Academy, concluded in a report released in May that genetically modified soy crops are not delivering what the transnational companies promised. Based on assessments of soybean fields in the US, Benbrook discovered that the transgenic varieties produced 5% to 10% less than conventional varieties.

Further, he found that the genetically modified soy utilised 10% to 30% more herbicide than conventional soy.

RAFI spokeswoman Ribeiro said it is clear that there has been a global decline in the cultivation of transgenic crops, which indicates “that the furore over this type of seed is entering a crisis.”

The companies that sell transgenic seeds have attempted to put a global spin on the marketing of their products, but several countries - the European Union in particular - have erected obstacles to prevent imports of such products, and more and more are announcing the implementation of similar measures.

Some scientists - alongside social and environmental activists - caution that genetically modified organisms could serve as the vehicles of previously unknown diseases and constitute a threat to native plants and biodiversity.

The UNDP says in its Human Development Report 2001 that it is aware of the risks involved with transgenics, but asserts that they should not be ignored as a potential source for feeding the world’s hungry. The forces guiding the debate on the transgenic questions are public fear and commercial interests, says the UNDP.

The agency’s report states that the decline in malnutrition in South Asia - from 40% in the 1970s to 23% in 1997 - is a result of technological advances in farming practices and the use of fertilizers and pesticides, which led to a four-fold increase in rice and wheat yields.

The so-called Green Revolution, which since the 1960s has fostered the use of fertilizers and pesticides, and other advances that allowed an increase in agricultural production, prove that technological progress deeply influences development, adds the UNDP.

Studies by Peter Rosset, Joseph Collins and Francis Moore Lappe, of Foodfirst, a US-based NGO, show that between 1970 and 1990, the quantity of food available per person worldwide increased 11% and the portion of the global population suffering from hunger dropped 16%.

However, if China’s data are excluded, the global figures indicate that hunger increased 11% in that 20-year span.

The Foodfirst experts maintain that the reduction of hunger in China - from 406 million to 189 million people in the period studied - was due to social and political reforms, not to the impacts of the Green Revolution.

“The solution to hunger and starvation lies elsewhere, not in technology,” stressed Ribeiro.

Civil society lobbying groups maintain that transnational corporations have imposed the use of genetically modified seeds upon world agriculture because it represents a boost to their bottom line.

The answers to hunger could lie in organic farming practices and in traditional forms of crop improvement, but these possibilities have been cast aside because they involve farmers who are a long way from the global trade circuits, Ribeiro said.

The UNDP, meanwhile, indicated that organic farming could be the most effective approach in some cases, but not in all situations.

Governments should assess the costs and benefits of transgenic organisms, inform the population, establish effective regulations, share information with other countries and conduct more research, prescribes the UN agency. – SUNS4936

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